0/OZ2. 






CLARK UNIVERSITY, 

WORCESTER, MASS. 



First Annual Report of the President 



TO THE 



BOARD OF TRUSTEES. 



Oct. 4, 1890. 



TRUSTEES. 

President, - - - JONAS G. CLARK. 

{Charles Devens. 
George F. Hoar. 
William W. Rice. 

Secretary, - - - FRANK P. GOULDING. 

EULL BOARD OF" TRUSTEES 

Jonas G. Clark. 
Stephen Salisbury. John D. Washburn. 
Charles Devens. Frank P. Goulding. 

George F. Hoar. George Swan. 

William W. Rice. Edward Cowles. 

COMMITTEES. 
FINANCE. BUILDINGS. 

Jonas G. Clark. Jonas G. Clark. 

Stephen Salisbury. Stephen Salisbury. 

John D. Washburn. 

BY-LAWS. 

Jonas G. Clark. 
William W. Rice. 
John D. Washburn. 
Stephen Salisbury. 
George Swan. 

James P. Hamilton, - - - Cashier. 



CLARK UNIVERSITY, 

WORCESTER, MASS. 



First Annual Report of the President 



BOARD OF TRUSTEES. 



Oct. 4, 1890. 



WORCESTER, MASS. : 

Published for the University. 

Nov., 1890. 



Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees : — 

I have the honor to submit herewith my first annual 
report. 

When called upon to consider the invitation with 
which the trustees of this university honored me, two 
and a half years ago, I was in an institution which, in 
the less than fifteen years of its existence, had done a 
work in stimulating other institutions, and in advanc- 
ing the highest standards, which was, as I think all 
cheerfully admit, beyond comparison in the recent his- 
tory of higher education in this country. After study- 
ing Worcester and the New England situation, I saw 
the opportunity here to be so great for a further and at 
least no less epoch-making step, that I felt that assured 
career, and even an important department, new in this 
country and full of fascinations, and in the most criti- 
cal stage of its development, ought not to weigh 
against it. Permission was at once given me to begin 
my preparations for this important work by studying 
foreign institutions for a year. I visited every Euro- 
pean country but Portugal, and found everywhere 
great and surprising advances since my own student 
life abroad had ended. 

The educational awakening in Germany inspired by 
Fichte after her greatest humiliation by Napoleon was 
hardly greater than the awakening in France after the 



catastrophy of 1870. The next year timid partial re- 
forms were proposed in geography and gymnastics, 
but it was soon seen that the entire system must be 
recast. Not the schoolmaster who made the soldiers, 
but the German university which made the school- 
master, conquered at Sedan, said Renan. If the state 
is to ensure social order within and be strong with- 
out, democracy must find a new principle of life in 
universities, and education must become the great 
problem of statesmanship. Before, students had gone 
direct from the Lycees to technical and special studies. 
Now studies of a purely scientific character are fostered 
by stipends, and by the new Ecole des Sautes Etudes, 
which have for their object to develop savants 
and professors, — a work formerly left almost solely to 
the Ecole Normale. Formerly instruction was public 
and to mixed audiences ; now seminary and laboratory 
courses solely for adepts, have excited great enthusi- 
asm and attracted the best and most advanced students 
all over the country. Formerly the faculties were 
isolated even in the same town ; now, with private, 
esoteric courses and by the new system of joint coun- 
cils, and by a policy of concentration, the direct oppo- 
site of the English and American method of so 
called university extension, and by the strange new 
student fraternities, something like universities, hither- 
to unknown in France, is the new goal of many lines 
of endeavor. Twenty new chairs in Paris alone, the 
greatly enlarged liberties of provincial faculties, and 
the co-operation of localities in recruiting them, the 
policy of decentralization in all, but especially in the 
lower grades of education ; the magnificent new con- 
sell superieur, composed of sixty-two leaders in many 



fields, which brings a wisdom and gives an authority to 
solutions and measures and is charged with advisory 
responsibility perhaps the greatest in history ; magnifi- 
cent buildings like the new Sorbonne, the medical 
school, and Lycees like those of Janson de Sailly and 
Laon ; the establishment of normal schools, five chairs 
of education in the faculties, of a pedagogical museum, 
the development of the pedagogy of higher education 
by several new journals, the docent system; the remark- 
able new school for the post-graduate training in states- 
manship, which, although a private institution, is train- 
ing the political leaders of all parties ; the new law of 
1878, basing all clinical and practical medical studies 
upon the sciences which underlie them (chemistry and 
the various branches of biology) ; the Musee Guimet, 
which two years ago opened its extensive museums 
and libraries, and now offers facilities for the study of 
comparative religion unequalled in the world ; and the 
great fact that in fourteen years the total amount 
devoted to education in that country has increased 
sevenfold ; — all this shows how far, in the words of a 
distinguished French statesman, higher education is 
fast becoming the central question for France. 

In Italy a council of education, composed of six- 
teen royal appointees and sixteen professors selected 
from the universities, has grappled with the problem 
of subordinating fourteen of its universities to the 
other seven, which latter are being rebuilt with great 
and sometimes literally palatial magnificence. As, 
with the policy of doubling for each provincial univer- 
sity all the funds it can raise for itself, the government 
has gradually acquired practical control of most of 
them, scholarly and scientific activity has been awak- 



ened to new life in nearly all directions, and ambitions 
of intellectual leadership, as in the best days of the 
mediaeval universities of Italy, are often manifest. 

Holland has revised and co-ordinated her organiza- 
tions of higher education, and established one new uni- 
versity. Sweden has profoundly reconstructed her 
educational system on a plan that might be called the 
most severely modern in the world, and Denmark is 
taking steps in the same direction. In 1884, Russia 
after prolonged discussion, re-organized her universi- 
ties. In Great Britain, new provincial universities, 
and important changes in the others, too many and 
great to be briefly described here, have been inaugu- 
rated. In Germany, thirteen magnificent university 
buildings make Strassburg, in all departments, the best 
of all architectural embodiments of the German uni- 
versity ideal. Halle and Kiel have been, and Breslau 
is now being, almost entirely rebuilt. New and often 
magnificent laboratories, libraries, special cliniques, 
and museums at every seat of learning, — great temples 
of science, as they were called by one of its perfervid 
orators, Du Bois-Reymond, — and two single buildings 
costing four million dollars each, show where much of 
the French indemnity money has gone ; and what is 
far more important, the internal has not lagged behind 
the external growth. At Budapesth, Ghent, Aix-la- 
Chapelle, Helsingfors in Finland, and even in remote 
Athens, magnificent new structures show in what 
esteem science is now held, and what still greater 
things she is yet expected to do. Several institutions 
of new pattern, like the Naples School of Zoology, 
which now trains the best professors for Germany; the 
London University, which is solely an examining body. 



and does not teach, — these and many more show not 
only how many and strong, but how differentiated, in- 
stitutions have become in the field of higher education. 

In my trip, information was sought from every 
source. Books, reports, and building-plans of many 
kinds were gathered. Ministers of education, heads of 
universities, and, above all, leading scientific men, were 
visited. The information and advice of the latter, 
always cheerfully given, and in not a few cases in 
detail and in writing, constitute by far the most valu- 
able result of this trip, and will soon be reported on at 
greater length. Much of this advice was confidential, 
and involved personalities; some of it embodies long 
and fondly cherished ideals of great men, nowhere yet 
realized; but most of it represents the inner aims, 
methods, and ideals of the best existing institutions, 
like those named above, and others. 

The causes and the effects of all these movements 
and ideals in Europe have been felt in other lands. 

After long discussion, a new university, to which 
hundreds of Russian patriots with exiled friends have 
contributed money, household treasures, and even 
prayers and tears, was at last founded in Siberia, at 
Tomsk, and not at the chief military centre, where 
freedom would have been impossible. In Japan one of 
the most interesting universities in the world has been 
developed as the centre and instrument of most of the 
remarkable transformations in that country. In Aus- 
tralia and South America new and vigorous universi- 
ties have been recently established. 

The new movement is already upon us in this 
country, and many significant facts show that the re- 
sultant interest and opportunity here have never been 



so great. All such facts and tendencies, and many 
more, opened a clear and broad field for us at Worces- 
ter, and unmistakably defined our work as follows : — 

1. It must be of the highest and most advanced 
grade, with special prominence given to original re- 
search. This our country chiefly lacks and needs for 
both its material and educational welfare. This is in 
the current of all the best tendencies in the best lands, 
and is the ideal to-day of, I believe, about every scien- 
tific man, who is able and in earnest, throughout the 
world. For this our location offers the rarest opportu- 
nities and inducements yet possible in this country. 

2. We must not attempt at once to cover the en- 
tire field of human knowledge, but must elect a group 
of related departments of fundamental importance, and 
concentrate all our care to make these the best possi- 
ble. Each science has become so vast and manifold 
that it is impossible to cultivate the frontier of all at 
a single university. This is more and more recognized 
abroad, and is still more true under our American sys- 
tem of private endowment than on the European plan, 
with a national treasury to draw from. If coming 
universities, instead of imitating, will supplement 
others, will elect each its group of studies, all the gain 
in economy and effectiveness which skilled labor has 
over unskilled will be secured in the field of highest 
education. 

3. For our group we chose at first five fundamen- 
tal and related sciences. Work in science can be 
quickest organized. Great libraries and museums, and 
every thing else that only age can bring, can be dis- 
pensed with at first, and a complete outfit of the best 
apparatus and of all needed books can be gathered in a 



short time. Again, this is a practical country, and its 
industries are sure to depend more and more on the 
3)rogess of science. So far, we have utilized science 
with extraordinary ingenuity in our inventions, but 
have done comparatively little to create or advance it. 
We desire to make a patriotic endeavor to develop 
American discoverers as well as inventors. Finally, 
and above all, science, with its modern methods, has 
become an unsurpassed school of discipline, culture, 
and reverence. 

4. We must seek the most talented and best 
trained young men. We must not exploit them for 
the glory of the institution, work them in a machine, 
nor retard their advancement, but we must give them 
every needed opportunity and incentive. Their salaries 
must be among the very best in the country, yet we 
must not ask them to spend their best energies in teach- 
ing and earning tuition fees for the university, and must 
leave open all possibilities, should such problems as indi- 
vidual fees, a periodic year in Europe, etc., arise later. 
We must give to those who know how to value it 
such facilities as we are able, that they may work for 
science and for themselves, requiring in return only a 
limited amount of mutual instruction, special and ad- 
vanced enough to aid rather than divert from research, 
(and no one is so eager and so able to teach the few fit 
as a discoverer), and careful conformity to a few obvious 
regulations. 

As from hundreds of applicants we have admitted but 
a very few of the best because many would frustrate 
our plans, so from the many subjects found in most 
large universities we selected five to receive all our 
care, although later we hope to increase both. 

Mathematics is often called the queen of all the 



10 

sciences. As the latter become exact, they approx 
imate it, and are fructified by its spirit and its methods 
Its antiquity, its disciplinary value, its rapid and recent 
development, make it obviously indispensable. Phy- 
sics is the field of the most immediate application of 
mathematics, and deals with the fundamental forces of 
the world, heat, sound, light, electricity, — and the un- 
derlying problems of form and motion generally, with 
their vast field of application in such sciences as astron- 
omy and dynamic geology. Chemistry, with its great, 
sudden development, revealing marvellous order and 
harmony in the constitution of matter, is rapidly ex- 
tending its dominion over industrial processes. Biol- 
ogy, which seeks to fathom the laws of life, death, 
reproduction and disease, that underlies all the medical 
sciences, in its broader aspects has taught man in 
recent decades far more concerning his origin and 
nature than all that was known before. Psychology, 
or the study of man's faculties and their education, is 
a new field into which all the sciences are now bearing 
so many of their richest and best ideas, and now so full 
of promise of better things for the life of man. These 
five we must have, and nowhere is man brought so 
close to the primitive revelation of God in his works. 

We have thus sought in these departments the 
highest form of what is called the philosophical faculty, 
devoted to non-professional specialization. We are not 
a ' graduate department ' in which most so-called grad- 
uate students attend, and most professors conduct 
undergraduate work. We are not an institution like 
the Smithsonian, which does no teaching. We are not 
an academy of sciences, but we have features of all 
these, and many more. This work is the most labori- 
ous and the most expensive. It is the most all-condi- 



11 

tioning and the most central for any and every new 
departure. An undergraduate department, a medical 
school, a technical school, and even still more special- 
ization in the existing departments, or new ones of any 
kind, could be developed from this basis with compara- 
tively little labor, time, and all but the last with little 
expense. But the value of all professional or industrial 
schools depends on the vigor and dominance of the 
philosophical faculty, the heart of every true university, 
from which they derive their life and light, and where 
knowledge is pursued for its own sake, and for its cul- 
ture effect on the investigator. 

We are thus a school for professors, where leisure, 
method, and incentive train select men to higher and 
more productive efficiency than before. 

Last year college trustees elsewhere found a full 
half-dozen of our fellows only too attractive for their 
vacant chairs. But if we can thus relieve college trus- 
tees of the difficulties under which they sometimes suc- 
cumb, in selecting suitable men for professorships, we 
can also ease them of the great expense of providing 
advanced courses, and from the temptation of retaining 
after graduation their best men, who could and should 
utilize larger opportunities. 

The rule of receiving only graduates has been steadily 
adhered to. All but two of our students have had one 
or more years of study after graduation before entering 
here. If we are really to relieve colleges of the neces- 
sity of attempting university work, we must not place 
our standards too high, and should receive any earnest 
man who intends a scientific career immediately after 
his college course ends. Many graduates, however, are 
not quite qualified to take up the work of investigation, 
but, on the other hand, research cannot be successful 



12 

with large numbers. It requires constant personal 
intercourse between professor and student at the most 
critical stage of the latter' s development. If he falls 
into cheap methods and ideals of research, as is too 
often the case, his career will be vain, useless, and even 
harmful. Every new research may need new apparatus, 
expeditions may be necessary, and plans and methods 
partly carried out may have to be changed, as nature 
reveals new avenues to her precious secrets. 

The relation of the university to the college has 
the same perplexities as that of the college to the prep- 
aratory school. Sometimes young men are not suffi- 
ciently trained in college to utilize all the advantages of 
the university, still less to engage in original research, 
and sometimes able men are held back in post-graduate 
courses in small colleges, which do their proper work 
admirably, but lack the means to offer the far larger and 
more costly opportunities of the university. The A. 
B. degree is now a finality for no scholar, and if it be 
that changes impend that may bring it earlier, and that 
the incalculable advantages of real university life and 
work in our own country be opened to more and more of 
these graduates, then our problem of making a better 
adaptation of our work to colleges generally and indi- 
vidually becomes increasingly imperative, — the more 
so, as we are, I believe, the only university in the 
country which does not draw its chief earnings from 
and do most of its teaching for undergraduates, and 
many, if not most of its so-called graduate students, 
take undergraduate courses. In no university has the 
proportion of expenditure to income been so high as 
here, for, although our tuitione is higher than any 
university or college known to me, we can admit but 



13 

very few students. We must, therefore, give preced- 
ence to the very best and make full membership in 
Clark University an honor. This, however, need not 
prevent us from abating tuitions in worthy cases, nor 
even from holding quizzes or brief and special prepara- 
tory courses for graduates who are promising but not 
fully qualified to use to the uttermost the opportunities 
here, should we later desire to do so. 

For those students whom we receive we should do 
everything possible for instructors to do. They should 
be personally aided, guided to the best literature, and 
advanced by every method that pedagogic skill and 
sympathy can devise. They should feel all the enthu- 
siasm, understand all the interests, and all the methods 
of the instructor. He should confidentially share with 
them all his hopes and plans for research. A great leader 
in science in Europe lately said in substance that he who 
has reserves from his own select and nearest student- 
apprentices, and has not learned the wisdom of sharing 
his choicest ideas freely with those he instructs without 
fear that they will be appropriated to his detriment, is 
not himself fertile in ideas, and is a pedagogue rather 
than a professor. The best and most advanced students 
will best and keenest and most lastingly appreciate all 
this, and every other effort in their behalf whether by 
professors or by the authorities of the university. The 
chief study of the latter is that every one here be so 
placed that he may do the best and the most work of 
which he is capable. They are quick to share the 
pleasure and pride in his every achievement, and feel 
every token of appreciation he may receive from the 
competent expert, or which he in return is sure to feel 
for their endeavors. Our great work, now in its most 



14 

interesting, formative stage, when the very highest 
ideas may not be without some practical results, should 
inspire all with a passion for harmony and co-operation, 
and even if need be for forbearance and mutual con- 
cession. Perhaps none of us will ever see again an 
opportunity so precious and for a movement in the field 
of highest education in this country of great historic 
and national significance. 

Our docents are in no way assistants, and their rela- 
tions are directly with the president. They are exempt 
from all routine work, and are independent in both 
teaching and research. They are expected to work for 
science and for themselves. These positions have 
attracted a group of young men of very rare ability 
and attainment, who are certain to have great influence 
on the scientific future of this country. To aid them 
by councils, and to provide for their needs, is not only 
a rare satisfaction for administrators or professors, but 
is certain to raise the level of both scientific work and 
instruction in our country. A new institution naturally 
attracts young men who, even though not always 
experienced in the business of faculty meetings and in 
the details of building and equipment, are the very life 
of an institution, whose authorities are inspired by their 
noble ambitions. 

In our methods of instruction, stated lectures, 
which are required by vote of the trustees of each 
instructor, are the smallest part. Elbow-teaching is given 
in the laboratory, and there is individual and constant 
guidance of reading, as well as experimentation, if 
needed or desired. Clubs, conferences, and seminaries 
are held, where all important literature in a wide field, 
and in different languages, is read ; each man taking a 



15 



subject, and reading and reporting for the benefit of 
others. Not only the information, but the insight, 
criticism, methods, and standpoint of each are pooled 
for the edification and stimulation of all. The contact 
between professor and student was never closer, and 
more avenues were never opened between minds work- 
ing in the same place and field. 

The most important part of our work is research, 
and we wish soon to be ready to be chiefly judged by 
the value of our contributions to the sum of human 
knowledge. By the unanimous vote of the board of 
trustees, approved by a unanimous vote of the faculty, 
the leading consideration in all engagements, re-ap- 
pointments, and promotions, must be the quality and 
quantity of successful investigation. This significant 
step gives us a unique character, and makes most of 
our problems new ones. 

It seems, and often is, a very simple and easy thing 
to take a free look at new facts. This kind of investi- 
gation may be made by any traveller or intelligent col- 
lector of specimens. It is sometimes harder to slightly 
vary the conditions in well-known fields, and note the 
concomitant variations in the result. Both these kinds 
of work are, in a sense, original research. Such are 
many of the theses for the doctor's degree, not to 
speak of those that are not published ; so that the work 
of the professors and the students, and the standing of 
the university and the value of its degree, are unknown. 
Results must be had without risk of failure. Very dif- 
ferent from and above this and all so-called ' analogy- 
work ' are the investigations conducted by the aid of 
accomplished experts, who have already taken their 
doctor's degree, and give their entire time to co-opera- 



16 

tion with the professors. Of these we have had one or 
more in each experimental department during the year, 
and with excellent results, for investigation. Risks of 
negative results, often very important in themselves, 
must be freely taken, if results of great value are to be 
attained. 

There is no institution that should be more respected 
than a university that is old and ]arge, whether in 
Europe or America. It has been the home of the best 
youth in their best years; their highest hopes and 
choicest memories center in it. It has trained those 
who made the state great and the church sacred and 
beneficent. Old men visit it to reanimate old friend- 
ships and renew their hold on youth and on ideals. 
There are great libraries, museums, and buildings and 
wealth accumulated from many donors. All these 
things money cannot buy nor new institutions duplicate, 
if they would. None of us all can love his cherishing 
mother too warmly, speak too ardently in her praise, 
or resent too hotly any indignity put upon her. 

Yet age which brings wisdom may bring infirmi- 
ties. In a time and land where change is so rapid 
Trustees, Alumni and even Faculties sometimes fall 
behind. Time is lost in administrative details better 
left to one. Young men are held back, and talent not 
held to its best thing, but kept doing the work of 
cheaper men, and the question may become pertinent 
why, with vast resources, so little is done for culture 
and for the advancement of knowledge by old institu- 
tions or comparatively so much by new ones. There is 
much to foster complacency, and an unfortunate 
absence of competent criticism from without whence 
all university reforms in history have really come. 



17 

Prejudices may accumulate from without, and student 
custom and ideals grow up within that are as inveterate 
and ineradicable as they are vicious and absurd, but 
which make progress slow and hard. There is some- 
times an excess of conservations, routine, and machin- 
ery. Saddest of all, perhaps, departments of endowed 
knowledge, like professors, sometimes cease to be pro- 
ductive and grow dry, formal, sterile, but they cannot 
be displaced. It may be harder to regard an old institu- 
tion as a means, precious only as it broadly serves the 
highest culture-interests of the whole nation, and not as 
an end precious in and for itself. We know how waste- 
ful and unproductive the vast resources of Oxford and 
Cambridge had become in 1854, and what old abuses 
had to be corrected in Italy and Holland by such and 
other somewhat drastic outside means. In this new 
country we need new men, new measures, and occa- 
sionally new universities ; and we, like England, have 
in later years experienced their amazing good. In the 
field of experimental science, unlike some other depart- 
ments, what is there of importance, that a few centuries 
can afford, that cannot be at least as well provided in a 
few years ? 

We duplicate almost nothing in other universities 
in this country. A full department of Physics, Chem- 
istry, or Mathematics even, to say nothing of Biology, 
the complexity of which is more obvious, as sketched 
for us by several European leaders in their field, would 
each require several professors, each with one or more 
assistant professors to represent its several sections or 
departments of the subject. Thus, to say nothing of 
difference of grade or standard, it does not follow that 
because we have Physics, Chemistry, and other depart- 



18 



ments found in other institutions, there is duplication. 
The contrary is, in fact, the case. The best professors in 
these fields, however authoritative they may be in the 
entire department, excel in and contribute chiefly to 
but a few chapters of it, leaving ample space for other 
directions of excellence elsewhere. 

In the new era of university development, upon 
which this country is now entering, it is of fundamental 
importance for economy and for the success of a great 
movement, that in place of the monotonous uniform- 
ity, duplication and servile immitation that has pre- 
vailed, institutions should freely differentiate, and should 
be known to do so; that above the commendable loyalty 
to local institutions by their graduates, there should 
arise the same comparative and critical discrimination 
of institutions, as of courses in the same institutions 
under the elective system. Perhaps the chief benefit 
of the latter has been the stimulus it gave to every 
professor to make his course so profitable that it should 
prove attractive to the most of the best students. The 
same stimulus could be given to institutions by the 
extension of the elective system to them. 

In these and many other ways a new institution in 
a, time and place like the present finds its problems 
new, and ought to become a new movement. 

Our departments and sub-departments are divided 
into majors and minors. This distinction is not based 
upon the merit or ability of the instructors ; some of 
our best men representing at present minor depart- 
ments in which we should hesitate to attempt to qual- 
ify for the doctor's degree. Neither does it rest upon 
the scientific importance of the subjects, some of the 
minors being quite as necessary for a complete univer- 



19 

sity as some of the major departments. It is due 
essentially to the fact that we are organizing slowly. 
Enlargements, when they come, which, by vote of the 
trustees are to be made in departments most closely 
related to those already established, may any time 
convert minors into major departments. 

The more advanced men here fall into two cate- 
gories, the staff and the annual appointees. This line 
of demarcation may not always distinguish greater age, 
attainment, ability or salary, or general desirability for 
our work from less. Some annual appointees are older, 
have done more work and may receive more pay than 
the lowest on the staff. Each member of the latter has 
a longer term of appointment, and participates in the 
hitherto very slight business of faculty administration. 
The distinction does not coincide with the line between 
major and minor departments, nor is it due to any doubt 
about the permanent desirability of the majority of the 
men now holding these appointments, but it rests now 
upon certain exigencies of our situation. While it is 
without doubt a source of stimulation, and to some 
extent will remain indispensable so long as we are 
engaged in selecting our faculty, the fact that so many 
men of great merit are dependent on an annual renewal 
of their appointment is a source of grave disadvantage , 
which I venture to express the hope may soon be 
obviated. 

It is impossible, in untechnical terms, to even speak 
of the researches undertaken here during the year, 
although these are the chief work of the university. 
New minerals in Arkansas, with a book on the petro- 
graphy of that State ; chemical action as affected by 
electricity in the field of a strong magnet ; the crystal 



20 

structure of isomorphous compounds ; the ultimate 
atomic and molecular constitution of two widely differ- 
ent groups of chemical substances, which is said to 
establish new and important scientific conclusions ; 
further developments of the non-euclidean geometry ; 
several papers, said to be of much algebraic importance, 
on matrices ; a standard of length in terms of a light- 
wave one fifty- thousandth of an inch long ; a new 
method of greatly magnifying the power of telescopes, 
so that possibly the disks of fixed stars may be seen (a 
method speedily put in operation by the Lick Observa- 
tory, with the largest telescope glass in the world) ; the 
electrical properties of the air, and a little group of 
problems in meteorology ; the embryology of an animal 
peculiar to America, and of great importance to the 
ancestry of vertebrate life; studies of sea-anemone and 
jelly-fishes ; the breeding-habits and embryology of the 
lobster, strangely unknown before ; a third fundamental 
tissue determined for most organs in the vertebrate 
body; the discovery of the innervation of veins; the 
comparative study of organs of taste in many verte- 
brates ; fatigue, studied experimentally and also histo- 
logically, in the living cell ; the brain of the world- 
known deaf-mute, Laura Bridgman, more thoroughly 
studied than any brain ever before has been ; the time 
of the quickest mental and nerve processes ; the sense 
of rhythm, so fundamental to several arts ; the myths, 
customs, and beliefs of the native Indian tribes of 
British Columbia, — all of these and half a dozen more 
of less significance, some not yet completed, some 
already published in several languages, represent some 
of our work here during the past year, so important 
that if, instead of marking the beginning of a second 



21 



year with greater facilities and increased numbers and 
zeal, this occasion marked the close of the university, 
the sum of human knowledge would have been larger 
for our having existed, and we should have our place 
forever in the history of the advancement of science. 

In addition to this, I do not here mention the 
marked stimulus we have already exerted on other 
institutions on which much might be said, nor the 
unsought and unexpected public commendation of our 
plan by a number of the leaders of educational thought 
in Europe. 

During the past year we have received from a 
" citizen of Worcester " a fund of five thousand dollars 
to aid " some one or more worthy native born citizens, 
of the city of Worcester, who may desire to avail him- 
self of the advantages of the institution. Mrs. Eliza W. 
Field has given five hundred dollars to provide for the 
minor needs of a scholar or fellow. 

Our present needs are the strengthening of some of 
our existing departments, several new departments and 
buildings, the enlargement of our library, the equip- 
ment of a large room for a gymnasium, especially for 
winter use, additional fellowships and scholarships. 

The work of the university began a year ago, in all 
its departments. During the first part of the year, the 
work of furnishing and equipment was carried on side 
by side with lectures and scientific work. Some 
unavoidable delay was caused by the tardy filling of 
orders for books and particularly apparatus. Our 
nearly threescore men (selected in part only from 
about nine hundred applicants for various positions) 
included graduates of forty-eight different universities 
and colleges. The printed register describes the build- 



22 

ings, grounds, and organization of the faculty ; the 
system of docents and fellowships ; methods and courses 
of instruction ; and the scientific and literary equipment 
of each department. The plans of the founder and 
some of the conceptions of the trustees and president 
are printed in a pamphlet containing a report of the 
opening exercises of the university Oct. 2, 1889. 
During the year twenty-eight professors and other 
instructors have given thirty-three courses, attended 
often by other professors. This method of mutual 
instruction has proven a great and wholesome stimulus. 

In a new movement of such magnitude and impor- 
tance, we must go slowly to go surely. For many of 
our new problems there is little precedent in this coun- 
try to aid us, and in studying the experience of older 
and more advanced countries, we cannot distinguish 
too carefully between elements which owe their success 
to the national spirit, and the different environment of 
race, religion, industry, tradition, etc., which it would 
be affectation and folly to attempt to imitate, and 
those elements which are simply means to an end, 
which only long experience can evolve, and which it 
would be as unwise not to avail ourselves of, as to re- 
fuse to utilize a mechanical invention because it was of 
foreign origin. 

To do this requires time and much discriminating 
labor. To bring to bear upon our problems the light 
and fructifying suggestions of all available experience 
and wisdom, and thus to aid ourselves in this work, as 
well as for our students, we begin this year to develop 
the pedagogy of higher education by a new third 
journal now about to be issued from the university. 
For this much preparation has been made in collect- 



23 



ing recent literature, reports, laws, etc., and getting 
access to the best sources of information, both personal 
and official in Europe and this country, and the results 
will be digested in each number with as great com- 
pleteness and conciseness as possible. The journal will 
be intended also as a convenient aid to the few leaders 
elsewhere charged with administrative responsibilities 
in the field of higher education. 

While, however, we must go slowly we cannot afford 
to go too slowly. The present opportunity is without 
precedent in our educational history. Never were 
educational opinions so plastic and formative, or all 
minds so receptive, or so bent on better things in 
higher education as now. On several important next 
steps the information is all in and digested, and we are 
all agreed, and serious loss and grave disappointment 
of great expectation, which many years will be required 
to efface will, I am fully convinced, follow long delay. 
The present opportunity to set noble fashions, to give 
the right direction to strong and important currents 
without, possibly no less valuable than the be stand 
most we dare hope or wish for ourselves within, is 
precious and cannot last. 

Finally, although we yet lack all the traditions and 
enthusiasm that come with age, with what gratitude 
and earnest felicitation does every mind and heart here 
turn to a founder who is not a tradition, a picture, a 
statue, or even a memory, but the living, animating 
power of the institution he has planted with such wis- 
dom, and watered with such care ! As an investigator 
toils to bless mankind with new discoveries, so he has 
wrought that the world might be blessed by the more 
rapid increase and diffusion of truth. As a teacher 



24 

longs to impart all his knowledge to a favored pupil, 
so he has been the best of all my teachers in things in 
which a scholar may sometimes lack wisdom. As 
parents are anxious for the comfort and highest success 
of all their children, so he, and his devoted wife, could 
even be careless of what all others may say or do, if 
only every man here be so placed, furnished, and 
incited as to do the best work of which he is capable, 
for himself and for science. If we labor with his per- 
sistence and devotion, his care in things that are small 
as well as great, we cannot fail to realize his and all 
our highest hopes and best wishes for Clark Univer- 
sity. 



The following reports from the departments cover 
only the original researches undertaken here during 
the past year. The teaching, equipment and buildings 
are described in the Register. 

G. Stanley Hall, 

President of the University. 
Worcester, Mass., Oct. 4, 1890. 



I.— MATHEMATICS. 



Professor Story. 



It will perhaps make clearer what my research-work during 
the past year has been if I sketch briefly the history of the 
subject in which I have been working. 

No real improvement in geometrical methods was made from 
the time of Euclid to that of Legendre. In attempting to put 
the treatment of geometry on a surer logical basis, Legendre, 
assuming that the straight line is of infinite length, proved 
that the sum of the angles of a plane triangle cannot exceed 
two right angles, but he did not succeed in showing that this 
sum may not fall short of two right angles. Gauss then 
showed that a consistent geometry could be built upon the 
assumption that the above-mentioned sum is less than two 
right angles, and such a geometry he called "non-euclidean." 
Lobatchefsky and J. Bolyai also independently discovered 
this geometry, which the former called u imaginary" (now 
commonly called " hyperbolic geometry"). In 1859, Profes- 
sor Cayley (" Sixth Memoir upon Quantics," Phil. Trans., 
Vol. 149) showed that, in the geometry of Euclid, the distance 
between two points admits of a projective expression and sug- 
gests a generalization. Laguerre, in 1853, (Nouvelles annales 
de Math.) had already given a similar expression for the 
angle between two lines. From the investigations of Eiemann 
("Ueberdie Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zu Grunde 
liegen," Habilitationsschrift read 1854, printed in the Gottinger 
Abhandlungen, Vol. 13) and Helmholtz ("Ueber die 
Thatsachen, welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen," Gottin- 
ger Kachrichten, 1868, No. 6) follows that a consistent geome- 
try can be built on the assumption that the straight line is of 
finite length, in which geometry the sum of the angles of a 
plane triangle is greater than two right angles ( ' ' elliptic 
•geometry"). In 1871, Professor Klein (" TJeber die sogenaunte 
Nicht-Euklidische Geometrie," Math. Annalen, Vol. 4) gave 



26 



expressions for the most general measures of distances be- 
tween points and angles between lines and planes which inter- 
sect, which are simple generalizations of the expressions 
given by Laguerre and Cayley . Beltrami had shown ( ' ' Sag- 
gio di interpretazione della Geometria non-euclidea," Giorn. 
di Matematiche, 1868) that the non-euclidean (hyperbolic) 
geometry in a plane is equivalent to the euclidean geometry 
on a surface of negative curvative, and, in 1872, Professor 
Klein (Math. Ann., Vol. 6) showed the equivalence of the 
elliptic and hyperbolic geometries with his projective meas- 
urement. In a series of articles published several years ago 
in the American Journal of Mathematics, I applied Professor 
Klein's definitions to plane and spherical trigonometry (Pro- 
fessor Cayley had already applied them to a special plane 
trigonometry), extended them to the measurement of areas 
and volumes, and gave a number of special applications, par- 
ticularly to conic sections. 

For some time I have had in mind to develop the subject 
systematically, applying it to the metrical relations of plane 
curves and surfaces in general. During the past year this has 
been my principal work. I had hoped to have a memoir 
embodying my results ready for publication before this, but 
the elaboration of certain parts of the theory, whose very exist- 
ence was unforeseen, has delayed the work, at the same time 
increasing its interest. For the sake of completeness I have 
reproduced Professor's Klein's deduction of generalized meas- 
urement and the really fundamental formulae of my former 
papers. I have treated the theory of parallels and parallelo- 
grams with sufficient thoroughness to show how the 
corresponding portion of Euclid is affected. This treatment 
suggested (or necessitated) the study of a surface (mentioned 
by Clifford) which is defined as the locus of a straight line 
moving parallel to itself so as always to meet a given straight 
line, and which turns out to be a (non-euclidean) circular 
cylinder and (as is sufficiently curious) the only non- 
euclidean cylinder of the second order. I was thus led to 
study systems of concentric circular cylinders and cylinders 
of higher orders, of which I have obtained a number of inter- 
esting properties. I have also developed a non-euclidean 



27 

theory of the curvature of surfaces. The projective character 
of the generalized measurement makes a purely geometrical 
treatment of the subject possible, a fact of which I have made 
some use, although in general I have employed the analytical 
method. The analytical theory is however essentially inde- 
pendent of any geometrical application and, regarding results 
not common to all possible geometrical interpretations as 
unessential, I have considered as far as I could the true 
(essential) significance of the infinite and imaginary in 
geometry, conceptions derivable in the first instance, as it 
seems to me, only from analysis. 

In addition to this work on non-euclidean geometry, I have 
done something during the latter part of the year toward gen- 
eralizing the theory of restricted algebraic equations, but the 
work is not yet in such a shape as to make a statement of 
results possible. 

Dr. Bolza. 

The object of my paper published in the American Journal 
of Mathematics, Vol. 13, is to give a new exposition of the 
theory of substitutions and its applications to algebraic 
equations and to supplement the existing treatises on the 
subject (Jordan, Serret, Netto) in several points. 

(1). I try to give an elementary introduction into the 
somewhat abstract theory of substitutions by presenting it in 
continual connection with the problem of solution of algebraic 
equations by radicals, beginning with the solution of the 
cubic and biquadratic equations. 

(2). I lay special stress on the consideration of a substi- 
tution group as a special case of groups of operations in 
general. 

Henry Taber. 
During the academic year, 1889-1890, I published a paper 
in the American Journal Mathematics, vol. 12, on the Theory 
of Matrices. In this paper, I regard a matrix as an operator 
linear in and distributive over the units of an algebra, and 
consequently as substantially identical with Hamilton's 
linear vector operator. By means of this conception, I 
obtain a very simple development of the subject, including 



28 

Cayley's identical equation and Sylvester's most important 
theorems (law of nullity, law of latency, the corollary of the 
laws of nullity, and the formula for any function of a matrix.) 
The object of this paper was to develop the subject, as left 
by Sylvester, from this very simple point of view: in addition 
I have completed the investigation of the corollary 
of the law of nullity for any relation between the latent 
roots ; I have thoroughly treated the matrical roots of unity, 
and the matrical roots of zero ; and I have shown that there 
is an infinity of algebras constituting a sequel to quaternions 
and nonions, whose laws of combination are equivalent to 
those of matrices of prime order. I have also shown that the 
laws of combination of matrices of composite order are 
identical with those of algebras whose units are the products 
of the units of linear algebras analogous to quaternions and 
nonions : whence it follows that the theory of all linear as- 
sociative algebras is included in that of sets of quaternions, 
such that the units of one set are commutative with those 
of another. In addition I have extended the conception of 
the quaternion symbols S and V to the theory of matrices in 
general. And in regard to the effect of the linear vector 
operator upon its giound, I have shown that what I term the 
latent regions of the matrix constitute subordinate grounds : 
i. e., that the effect of the matrix upon any vector in the 
extension pertaining to any latent root is to translate the 
quantity into one in the same extension ; and that this prop- 
erty is true of any rational integral function of the matrix. 

During the academic year, 1889-1890, I continued the in- 
vestigations of this paper, and the results are embodied in 
one paper, shortly to appear in print, and in two others 
uearly ready for publication. The first paper entitled 
u On Certain Identities in the Theory of Matrices," will ap- 
pear in the next number of the American Journal of Mathe- 
mathics. In this paper I have given a new proof (without 
employing the conception of a linear vector operator) of the 
extension to matrices in general of the quaternion symbols S 
and Y. I have applied this extension to the chain of equa- 
tions, and shown how, without employing Sylvester's latent 
function of the corpus of two matrices, from either of the 



29 



identical equations of two matrices, to obtain by immediate 
differentiation the other identical relations of their catena ; and 
I have shown that the coefficients of the catena may be ex- 
pressed in terms of the sums of the latent roots of the products 
of powers of the matrices involved, and given the expression 
for the coefficients of the catena in the case of matrices of the 
second and third orders. In addition I have shown how the 
identical equation, Sylvester's interpolation theorem, and the 
law of latency may be made to appear as explicit identities by 
employing the conception of the conjugate extended to 
matrices in general. 

Since the close of the academic year, 1889-1890, I have 
completed a paper on the application to the theory of 
matrices of the symbols S and Y. It is now ready for publi- 
cation. It contains a simpler proof of the extension to 
matrices of any order of the symbols S and Y, and a simpler 
method of applying these symbols to the catena of any num- 
ber of matrices ; in addition it contains the solution of a 
problem in matrices proposed by Sylvester*, and an expres- 
sion for the involutant of two matrices in terms of the sums 
of the latent roots of the products of powers of the two 
matrices, also a simple demonstration that the latent roots of 
two matrices are the same in whatever order they may be 
joined multiplicatively. 



♦The problem is, given two nonions, i and j, such that i 3 =j 3 = 1 and 
ji = lij (where I is an imaginary cube root of unity,) if m = (a ls a 2 , 
. . . a 9 £l, i, i*$l,j, j 2 ), n= (& M 6 2 , . . . b 9 \l, i, * S X1, j, j 2 ),— to find the 
relations between the tfs and b's necessary and sufficient that m 3 = n 3 =l 
and n m = I m n. 



II.— PHYSICS. 



Professor Michelson. 



(a) The establishment of a light wave as the ultimate unit 
of length. 

Almost every accurate measurement involves and usually 
depends upon a comparison between standards of length. In 
order that the results obtained by the refined methods and 
instruments now in use may be tested and compared all over 
the world, it is very essential that all such measurements 
should be ultimately referred to a single inalterable standard. 

At present the object is only approximately obtained by 
making a metal bar with finely ruled lines at the ends the 
ultimate standard at the temperature of melting ice. The 
length between these lines at the standard temperature is de- 
fined by law as the standard meter, and the bar is carefully 
guarded in a vault where it is never handled except for com- 
parison with copies. 

Copies of the standard which constitute secondary stand- 
ards are issued to the principal countries. 

This system has been found sufficiently accurate for all but 
the most delicate work, and if the permanence of the standard 
could be relied upon, leaves but little room for improvement. 

But it is well-known that all material bodies are undergoing 
changes of form, of volume, of weight — even of structure — 
changes which are altogether inappreciable except by very 
delicate measurements — but which, in the course of years, 
may accumulate until they are of sufficient magnitude to 
vitiate the results of years of patient labor. 

Some time ago it was thought possible to remedy this defect 
by selecting some " natural " standard which should be as 
permanent as the earth itself. 

Two such attempts were made and both were unsuccessful ; 
— the first was the measurement of the length of a pendulum 
vibrating in one second at Paris ; and, second, the measure- 



31 

ment of the forty millionth part of the earth's circumference. 

It was found that the results obtained in both cases differed 
among themselves by quantities much greater than are now 
admissible. Even if this difficulty were remedied by greater 
care and more perfect instruments, it may still be objected 
that both results would depend on the form and size of the 
earth and its time of rotation, all of which are subject to 
change. 

A third method has been proposed which depends on the 
fundamental properties of the atoms and the universal ether. 
Scientific men agree that there is no change in these, within 
the limits of the visible universe. 

This method proposes the length of a light wave produced 
by the vibrations of the atoms of any convenient kind of mat- 
ter in the state of incandescent vapor, and transmitted to the 
eye by the luminiferous ether. 

The very fact which permits an extraordinary degree of 
accuracy in this method, namely, the minuteness of the light 
waves, is at the same time the chief difficulty in making it a 
practical standard. Thus to multiply so small a length as a 
fifty thousandth of an inch to the length of a yard or a meter 
without at the same time multiplying the errors, is the prob- 
lem which has hitherto yielded only partially to the patience 
and ingenuity of physicists. 

In view of some very satisfactory results obtained by the 
" wave- comparer " in some preliminary work, it is hoped that 
these difficulties have been so far overcome that when the 
present investigation is completed, a method will be devised 
which will enable two observers at opposite ends of the earth, 
with different instruments and entirely independently, to con- 
struct two standards containing say a million light waves, 
which shall not differ from each other so much as do the pres- 
ent copies from the original standard. 

It may be stated that the new method has already attracted 
the attention of physicists generally, and in particular of the 
International Bureau of Weights and measures, and it is 
hoped that the demonstration of its practicability will be soon 
followed by its universal adoption. 

(b) The application of interference methods to astronomi- 
cal measurements. 



32 

It is well known that the * ' resolving power " of a telescope 
increases in proportion to the diameter of its object-glass. 
Thus in the case of a close double- star, if the angle subtended 
by the components is one second of arc, it would require a 
four inch glass to recognize it as a double. The largest tele- 
scope in the world would scarcely suffice to separate the com- 
ponents, if the angle were less than a tenth of a second. 

The same statements apply also to the case of a minute disc, 
such as is subtended by a small planet or satellite ; so that if 
this subtended an angle less than a tenth of a second, it 
would be impossible to say from its appearance whether it was 
a planetoid or a star. 

The stars themselves are so far distant that, notwithstand- 
ing their great size, they look like mere points, even in the 
largest telescopes, and, as it is tolerably safe to say, that since 
there are practical difficulties in the way of increasing the size 
of the glasses which increase enormously faster than the dimen- 
sions, it is simply hopeless to arrive at any idea of the real size 
of these distant luminaries by this means alone. 

As a result of a preliminary investigation completed last 
year in the Physical Laboratory of Clark University, it has 
been shown that by the simple device of covering the telescope 
by a cap provided with two adjustable slits, the capabilities of 
the instrument for such measurements may be increased from 
fifty to one hundred times. As instances of the performance 
of this arrangement, the following observations may be cited. 
Two minute holes in a piece of platinum foil, only one two 
hundred and fiftieth of an inch apart, were viewed at a dis- 
tance of a hundred feet through an excellent four-inch tele- 
scope (for the use of which thanks are due to the kindness of 
Dr. Kimball of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. ) By this 
means, it could barely be distinguished that the holes were 
double — no measurement was possible. On making the 
measurement by means of the device mentioned, the distance 
between the holes was correctly ascertained to within two or 
three per cent. Again, on viewing a single opening, only one 
fiftieth of an inch in diameter the apparent diameter was 
found to be in error by from fifty to one hundred per cent. ; 
whereas, the new method gave results correct to within two 
per cent. 



33 

Finally the arrangement has been further modified so as to 
dispense entirely with the large telescope, thus making it 
possible to increase the size of the instrument almost without 
limit. If among the nearer fixed stars there is any as large 
as our sun, it would subtend an angle of about one hundredth 
of a second of arc ; and the corresponding diameter of tele- 
scope required to observe this small angle is forty feet, 
which, while utterly out of question as regards a tele- 
scope objective, is still perfectly feasible with the device 
in question. There is, however, no inherent improbability of 
stars presenting a much larger angle than this ; and the possi- 
bility of gaining some positive knowledge of the real size of 
these distant luminaries would more than repay the time, 
care and patience which it would be necessary to bestow on 
such a work. 

It may be added in conclusion that by the kindness of Pro- 
fessor Pickering, the director of Harvard College Observatory, 
the six inch equatorial and such conveniences as the observa- 
tory affords, are to be employed in testing the new plan at 
once upon the heavenly bodies. 

Mr. Alexander McAdie. 

From the opening of the University until the arrival of the 
apparatus kindly loaned by the Chief Signal Officer General 
Greely, Mr. McAdie has spent his time in the preparation of 
a monograph on the Aurora, using the observations of the 
International Polar Expeditions of 1881-2-3, particularly the 
Lady Franklin Bay, the Point Barrow, and the Danish and 
Swedish expeditions. This is nearly ready for publication, 
but his preference is to hold it and incorporate it at a later 
date in a book on Atmospheric Electricity. 

Plans and specifications for a multiple quadrant electrometer 
were drawn up and later designs and specifications for an 
improved electrometer battery. The electrometer was con- 
structed by Brashear and is satisfactory. 

There are a great many points in connection with the 
intensity and duration of the lightning flash, — that this instru- 
ment could throw light upon, and as far as the work went last 
year, it was eminently satisfactory. In March, with the 



34 

arrival of the electrometers of the Geneva Society, (these 
electrometers are Mascart's modification of Sir Wm. Thom- 
son's quadrant electrometer as further modified by the U. S. 
Signal Service ; plans and specification for which Mr. McAdie 
drew up when in the laboratory of the Signal Office, under 
Prof. Mendenhall) the work of obtaining a continuous 
record of the electrical potential of the air began. These 
results have been worked up, and the paper is about ready 
for the press ; as it stands at present, it would make a pamph- 
let of about 40 pages. 

Mr. McAdie has also published a prize essay on Tornadoes, 
and several minor communications in "Nature," and the 
"American Meteorological Journal," also has the " roughs" 
of five small papers. 1. On Color-Blindness . 2. Dust in the 
Atmosphere. 3. Weather Charts. 4. Cyclones and Torna- 
does. 5. Thunder-Storms. A translation of Mascart's long 
paper in the " Journal de Physique, January, 1890," printed 
in "Am. Meteor. Journ., May, 1890." 



III.— CHEMISTEY. 



Dr. J. U. Nef. 



Dr. J. U. Nef, with the assistance of Dr. Victor Parpcke, 
has been at work during the year 1889-90 on research in or- 
ganic chemistry. The results obtained have been in great 
part published as follows : 

1st. u On Tautomeric Compounds," American Chemical 
Journal, Vol. XII, 6, pp. 47. Ueber Tautomere Korper." 
Liebig's Annalen der Chemie, 258, pp. 261-318. 

2nd. "The Constitution of Benzoquinone, " American 
Chemical Journal, Yol. XII, 7, pp. 26. 

It is impossible to explain to any one not familiar with 
organic chemistry the importance or the bearing of the above 
lines of work. 

The long series of experiments with tautomeric compounds, 
which have been chiefly in the Succinylosuccinic acid group, 
have come to a definite conclusion. There are in this group 
a large number of substances which have the property of 
existing in two, three or more different geometrical forms. 
This peculiarity has lead some chemists to believe that the 
different forms correspond to different chemical molecules. It 
was possible here, as in many other cases, to make the as- 
sumption of tautomerism, i. e., of a mobile hydrogen atom 
which can wander from carbon to oxygen or vice versa ad 
libitum. The experimental results have proved conclusively 
that the hypothesis is false in the above case and besides 
have brought forward new views and facts, concerning tau- 
tomeric compounds in general — 

The absence of tautomerism in the Anilic acid series has 
been definitely proven ; it also has become exceedingly prob- 
able that acetoacetic ether, which has so long been regarded 
by the majority of chemists as a Ketone, is really an alcohol 
and not tautomeric at all. The Phenyl-hydrazine reaction, 
which has heretofore been regarded as a rigid proof of the 
existence of a Ketone or an aldehyde group, is no longer con- 
clusive. 



36 

The assumption of the wandering of the hydrogen atom in 
a molecule so generally made to suit the reagent or hypothe- 
sis applied is thus rendered very improbable. 

The work on the constitution of benzoquinone has had for 
its object the determination of the exact chemical structure 
of the molecule of this substance. Since its discovery by 
Wosrekensky in 1839 , a very large number of facts have ac- 
cumulated concerning quinone and its many derivatives. 
Quinone is interesting because of its peculiar properties^ 
being a strong oxidizing agent and having a pungent smell 
like dilute chlorine. Up to the present time three formulae 
have been put forward as representing its constitution : 

H. II. III. 

,<k /«\ / CO x 

HC 6 CH H-C\ /CH H-C CH 

II ! I >C I II II 

HC O CH H-CC /CH HC CH 

C^ CO CO 

Hyperoxide formula. Diagonal Ketone form- Ketone formula of 

ula of Claus. Fittig. 

By a series of experiments with the anilic acids it was 
found that the results were decidedly in favor of Fittig' s 
formula (III) and finally it was found that quinone itself adds 
one and two molecules of bromine, forming peculiar addition 
products, which proves conclusively that it is an unsaturated 
body like ethylene, and that therefore it containes two 
doubly bound carbon atoms. Since quinone is a very simple 
substance, as well known as benzene, the question of its con- 
stitution is of general interest. 

One of the most striking results obtained in the work 
on quinone, was that certain hexamethylene derivatives 
(or closed chains of six constituent carbon atoms) are decom- 
posed instantly by means of pure water with the same vio- 
lence as a carbonate by mineral acids, and thereby are con- 
verted with evolution of carbonic acid into pentamethylene 
derivatives or closed claims of five constituent carbon atoms. 

Dr. Loeb. 
The delays in making and placing his somewhat elaborate 
apparatus, prevented active work until late in the academic 



37 

year. Some experiments were made on the oxidization and 
reduction of iron salts in the magnetic field, the results of 
which will soon be published. For more than a hundred 
years it has been a favorite speculation with English and 
American chemists, whether the phenomena of magnetism 
are so closely related to those of chemical affinity, that the 
one would influence the other. While various experiments 
have been made, at different times, whose results were now 
favorable and now unfavorable to such an assumption, it ap- 
peared that all of them were rather complicated by the intro- 
duction of processes, like the change from the solid to the 
liquid state, involving a new set of physical effects. To ob- 
viate such difficulties Dr. Loeb cast about for a reaction in- 
volving no physical changes ; such a one would be the oxida- 
tion of a ferrous to a ferric salt in solution, as the ferric salts 
are more magnetic than the corresponding ferrous. If magnet- 
ism really affects chemical reactions, it might be assumed to 
hasten such a reaction ; while it ought to retard a reaction 
which tended to lower the magnetism of the solution by the 
reduction of the iron. Numerous series of careful observa- 
tions, under varied conditions, convinced him that no notice- 
able difference is produced in these reactions by the presence 
of a powerful magnetic field, and he is inclined to consider 
this a proof of some moment in support of those who deny 
the existence of close relations between magnetism and 
chemical action. This question will be approached from a 
a different standpoint the coming year. 

Dr. Muthmann. 

Dr. Muthmann was occupied with researches on isomor- 
phous mixtures of different organic and inorganic bodies. 
A publication, concerning Sodic naphtylamine — and naphtyl- 
hydrazine sulphonate, which was finished together with Dr. 
W. Eamsay in Munich is printed in the September issue of 
"Groth's Zeitschrift fur Krystallographie." It contains 
observations on the subject, obtained by Lehmann's micro- 
scope, and will increase our knowledge of isomorphous mix- 
tures as well as of polymorphism. 

Dr. Muthmann' s main task last year, to investigate the 



38 

crystallographical relations between potassium perchlorate 
and permanganate. Besearches on this object were begun 
by Prof. Groth 25 years ago ; his observations are contained 
in a publication in "Poggendorf's Annalen." Dr. Muth- 
mann's investigations have shown that all the former meas- 
urements of the crystals in question are not exact enough to 
give a sufficient material for solving the important question, 
how mixed crystals are built up, his results being a new idea 
of the subject, of which the following is a description : 

Formerly crystallographers believed that the angles of 
mixed crystals differ from those of the pure substances ; 
Italian mineralogists, (and also Eammelsberg) assert that the 
angle of a mixture is between the corresponding angles of the 
pure substances, while Groth says, in his publication, that it is 
often larger or smaller than that shown by either component. 
Dr. Muthmann's measurements gave the unexpected result that 
both opinions are false and that for instance a good crystal , 
containing potassic perchlorate and permanganate, has exact- 
ly the same angles as one of the pure substances ; with which 
of them it is conform depends on the quantity of each salt in 
the mixture. This result was so unexpected that Prof. Groth, 
at present the greatest authority in crystallographical ques- 
tions, with whom he had a long interview and correspond- 
ence on the matter, thinks it desirable to ascertain the above 
given result by observations on other salts. He will augment 
the observations on ferrous and copper sulphate. He hopes 
to be ready with these measurements very soon. 

A research on rare earths is in preparation, which will be 
begun after he has finished his work on mixed crystals. 

Dr. Williams. 

Dr. Williams has been engaged during the greater part of 
the year in the investigation of the rocks and minerals of the 
State of Arkansas and especially of those of the Magnet Cove 
region. 

The time from October 9 to January 1 was occupied with 
the field work, which was done in co-operation with the State 
Geological Survey. The three principal areas, where igneous 
rocks occur, were carefully gone over, and the limits of the 



39 

various rocks noted on the fine topographical prepared by the 
state survey especially for this purpose. 

On returning to Worcester, Dr. Williams immediately began 
the investigation and determination of the rocks and minerals 
brought back with him, some of which proved to be of great 
interest. 

The investigation of the rock has been carried on by means 
of numerous chemical analysis, both of the rock as a whole, 
and of the separate minerals found in it ; and by means of a 
large suite of thin sections — numbering nearly 500 in all — 
which have allowed of a very complete insight into the micro- 
scopical structure of the various kinds of rocks found in the 
state. 

Among the minerals which have been the subjects of 
separate investigations may be mentioned the following : 

Eudialyte. Discovered at Magnet Cove by Shepard, in 1861, 
but lost sight of until a year ago, when Hidden and Mackin- 
tosh published a note describing some grains of a red mineral 
from this locality, and suggesting their identity with the 
Eudialyte of Shepard. The first measurements of crystals 
from this locality were made in the mineralogical laboratory 
of the University, and showed the complete identity of the 
mineral with the already well-known Eudialyte. 

Eucolite. This is found associated with Eudialyte, and is 
its first appearance in America. It has been found that a 
single crystal may consist in part of Eucolite while the rest of 
it is made up of Eudialyte. 

These results are awaiting publication in the American 
Journal of Science. 

Leucite. The occurrence of this mineral in Arkansas was 
first suggested by G. F. Kunz, on the strength of an analysis 
by F. A. Genth. At that time the mineral had only been 
found in isolated crystals and has only lately been found in 
the rock. It has been shown by analyzing first that portion 
of the mineral which is soluble in hydrochloric acid and then 
the insoluble part, that, although possessing the crystal form 
of Leucite, the mineral is, in reality, made up of a mixture of 
Sanidine and Nepheline. A complete analysis of the material 
taken from a very pure white crystal, differs somewhat from 



40 

Genth's analysis, because the latter was made from very im- 
pure material, so impure, in fact, thatKunz thought it not im- 
probable that the mineral was the result of the alteration of 
the common garnet of the region. 

These results and a description of the rock in which the 
Leucite occurs will be published in the American Journal of 
Science. 

Vesuvianite. The chemical, crystallographical and optical 
examination of beautiful crystals of this mineral found in a 
metamorphosed limestome have proven its identity, and have 
shown it to be remarkable on account of the large number of 
small quartz crystals included in it. 

Mangano pectolite. This is a new mineral which is very 
similar to Pectolite, but differs from the latter ; in that it con- 
tains over 4.3% of Manganese. Its properties have been more 
fully studied than those of Pectolite itself, on account of the 
greater ease with which comparatively large single crystals 
may be obtained. 

A full account of this crystal will be published in Girth's 
Zeitschrift fur Mineralogie und Krystallographie. 

Many commoner minerals have been determined and 
described, which have not as yet been known from Magnet 
Cove or else have been mistaken for other species. Among 
these may be mentioned Fluorite (chlorophane), Apatite, 
Titanite, and several forms of Mica. 

The principal part of the work has, however, been the study 
of the rock sections under the microscope, and as yet there 
can nothing positive be said about them. They cover a large 
range of rock species, but as the study of them is, by no 
means, completed, no conclusions regarding their relations to 
each other or even of their mineralogical composition can be 
drawn. These results will form a volume of the report of the 
State Geological Survey of Arkansas. 

No inconsiderable part of the time has been occupied in the 
preparation of maps and in reviewing the literature on the 
subject of the rocks and minerals of Arkansas. 

Outside of his Arkansas work, Dr. Williams has been busy 
in examining and describing some peculiar specimens of 
quartz from various localities sent to him by G. F. Kunz of 



41 

New York, and he hopes to soon be able to publish a paper 
on the results of his investigations. 

Mr. Julius Stieglitz. 
Dr. Stieglitz, under the direction of Dr. Nef, began a series 
of experiments with the idea of obtaining new carboxylated 
derivatives of quinone. Such derivatives were first obtained 
by Dr. Nef, who showed that they were very unstable. The 
method employed consisted in treating chloranil and dibromo 
quinone terephtalic ether, with sodium malonic ether. There- 
by ethers of new acids of the desired nature were obtained. 
All attempts to prepare the free acids from the new ethers 
proved futile and yielded simple products of decomposition. 
The results obtained so far contribute to confirm the suppo- 
sition that benzoquinone carbonic acids can not be obtained 
as stable compounds. The work is not complete, but a pre- 
liminary report is to be published in the American Chemical 
Journal in Baltimore, under the title "On Benzoquinone Car- 
bonic Acids." 



IV.— DEPABTMENT OF BIOLOGY. 
A. — Animal Morphology. 



Professor Whitman, 



Historical Research. — My work in research has been partly 
historical, partly embryological. The larger portion of the 
academic year was devoted to the two following subjects : (1). 
Theories of Generation, from the times of Aristotle to the 
present. (2.) The Development of Comparative Anatomy r 
beginning with Severino and ending with the celebrated dis- 
cussions of 1830, between Cruvier and Geoffroy St. Hilaire. 
This portion of my work is still very far from completion * y 
and several years more will be required before the hoped for 
results can be reached. 

We have a considerable number of works devoted to these 
subjects ; but most of them are purely descriptive and quite 
inadequate to the needs of the present time. 

My aim has been, not to accumulate disconnected facts and 
details in chronological sequence, but to trace the continuity 
of development in biological philosophy and discovery — to 
find the origin of the ideas, doctrines, systems, and schools 
that have marked the more important epochs, and to bring 
them into organic connection with the biological knowledge of 
to-day. 

It may be well to state here some of the considerations which 
have led me to undertake such work. My own need as teacher 
and investigator has been the prime inducement. I have 
searched in vain among extant treatises of the subjects above 
named for the information desired. The same need and the 
same difficulties have been quite generally experienced, as I 
am assured from many sources. It has seemed to me, there- 
fore, that work in the direction indicated might lead to 
results that would be generally useful to biological students r 
investigators, and teachers. 



43 

I find another strong inducement in the fact that our work 
here is to be limited exclusively to investigation. The instruc- 
tion required to make the most successful investigators and 
teachers must certainly include the history of the science. 
Every science represents a long continued advance ; and to be 
understood, it must be viewed as an organic growth. Its 
present stage is comprehensible only after we have studied 
carefully the antecedent stages of germination and develop- 
ment. Early discoveries and ideas are not simply superseded, 
they are rather incorporated, absorbed, and extended in the 
later ones. 

The fullest appreciation of the extent and value of our 
" vast patrimony of science" implies, therefore, a thorough 
knowledge of the steps of its acquisition. The historical sur- 
vey brings before us not only past progress, but also present 
form and state, aims and prospects. It illuminates the field, 
gives breadth and depth to our conceptions, enriches and 
enlarges our general views, makes us more generous, consid- 
erate, and respectful towards our predecessors and contem- 
poraries. It furnishes stimulating examples, suggests new 
ideas and methods, enables us to avoid the errors of the past, 
places before us the problems that have been solved and those 
that still await solution, and so saves us from wasting energy 
in reproducing facts already established. 

Embryological Research. — My embryological work has con- 
sisted in tracing the early development of the egg of one of 
our large Salamanders (Necturus maculatus). Necturus, as 
the genus was called by Eafinesque, has its nearest living ally 
in the subterranean Proteus of Europe. It is the lowest 
representative of American Batrachia, and thus holds an im- 
portant place in the ancestral history of the vertebrates. It 
has characters intermediate between the fishes on the one 
hand and the lowest air-breathing vertebrates on the other ; 
and stands in the direct line of descent connecting extinct 
forms of the Carboniferous period and the higher Salamanders 
of to-day. Unusual interest, therefore, centers in the embryol- 
ogy of this animal. Material for such study has long been 
sought for by naturalists, but hitherto without success. 

Necturus is found only in North America, but here it has a 



44 

wide range, being distributed through the tributaries of the 
Great Lakes and of the Mississippi, and in the rivers and 
lakes of many of the Southern States. I have found it quite 
abundant in the smaller lakes of Wisconsin, and it is there 
that my material has been collected. 

The egg of Xecturus is about the size of a pea ; and unlike 
the eggs of most Batrachia, it has no pigment to obscure the 
processes of development. Its large size, absence of pigment, 
and the transparency of its envelopes render it a peculiarly 
favorable object for the study of the superficial aspects of 
development. On the other hand, the preparation of material 
for preservation presents much greater difficulties than are 
met with in any other amphibian egg that has thus far been 
investigated. 

After many experiments, I finally succeeded in overcoming 
many of these difficulties and in preserving an abundance of 
material for the study of all stages from the moment of deposit 
up to the time when the embryo begins to form. Careful draw- 
ings of all these stages were made, and it only remains to 
complete the study by means of sections of preserved eggs. 

One of the more important points which I hope to be able 
to settle by this study is that of the formation of the embryo. 
I am now able to show substantial agreement in this respect 
between the fishes and the amphibia. The mode of formation 
of the vertebrate embryo has been much studied and much 
discussed, but still many obscurities remain to be cleared up. 
Kecturus promises to throw some light on this problem. 

I have, further, devoted considerable attention to the habits 
of Xecturus, and have the data for a pretty complete account. 
Hitherto, it has been considered impossible to distinguish the 
sexes by any external appearances. This point has now been 
satisfactorily settled, and it has opened the way for another 
investigation. Full details will be given when my memoir is 
published. 

Marine Biological Laboratory. — During the summer, the 
following researches have been carried on under my direction, 
at the Marine Biological Laboratory, at Wood's Holl : 

1. Contributions to the Morphology of the Vertebrate 
Head. 



45 

2. The Development of the Lateral- Line System of Sense - 
Organs in Batrachus. 

3. The Sense- Organs of the Pectoral Appendages of one of 
the Gurnards. 

4. The Early Stages of Development in Spirorbis. 

5. The Origin of the Periblast in Fundulus. 

6. The First Stages in the Development of Some Marine 
Mollusks. 

7. The Origin and Significance of Kupffer's Vesicle. 

In this work I have had the assistance of Dr. McMurrich 
and Dr. Ayers. The first of these memoirs is ready for pub- 
lication ; the others will be continued at the next session. 

Editorial Work. — During the year two numbers of the 
Journal of Morphology have been issued, and two more are 
now in press. The department of Microscopy in the Ameri- 
can Naturalist has continued under my charge. The purpose 
of this department is to report all important advances in 
methods of investigation. A volume of biological lectures, 
delivered by the staff and other members of the Marine Labor- 
atory during the summer, is soon to be published. 

Dr. McMurrich. 

During the past University Session Dr. McMurrich devoted 
his attention to certain problems concerning the relationship 
of certain groups of the lower many- celled animals. A large 
number of forms have been grouped together under the name 
of Actiniaria or Sea Anemones ; a more thorough study of the 
structure of the animals included within the group has shown, 
however, that it is necessary to sub-divide it into several co- 
ordinate groups, each distinctly marked out, so far as the 
adult animal is concerned, by characteristic anatomical pecu- 
liarities. A more accurate knowledge of these peculiarities is 
exceedingly important for the elucidation of the interrelation- 
ships of the various groups, and the early part of the session 
was employed in a study of the anatomical features of a large 
number of Actinians obtained by the U. S. Fish Commission 
Steamer " Albatross," on a voyage to San Francisco during 
the winter of 1887-8. Many important facts have been 
derived from this study, and it will be continued during the 



46 

coming session. The collection contains a large number of 
undescribed species, many of which are of peculiar interest as 
representatives of the deep-sea fauna of the Pacific, having 
been dredged in depths varying from 400 to 1,500 fathoms. 

The same problem was also attacked from the embryologi- 
cal side with very important results. The material for this 
research was obtained partly at the Marine Laboratories of the 
Johns Hopkins University at Beaufort, N. 0., and at Nassau, 
Bahama Islands, W. I., and partly at the Marine Biological 
Laboratory at Wood's Holl, Mass., and consisted of early 
developmental stages of forms belonging to four different 
groups of Actinians. A study of it demonstrated that, not- 
withstanding the great dissimilarity of the adult forms of the 
various groups, at one period of their development they were 
very similar, and thus it has been possible to trace out the 
ancestry and evolution of the various groups. The results of 
this investigation are now nearly ready for publication, and 
will probably appear during the coming winter. 

In connection with this work, some general considerations 
were suggested regarding the primitive differentiation of the 
tissues of the many- celled animals. These ideas were dis- 
cussed in a lecture delivered at the Marine Biological Labora- 
tory during the past summer and will shortly appear in print. 

A thorough study was also made of a peculiar Actinian 
Cerianthus. Hitherto no American forms of this genus had 
been studied, and the investigation of C. Americanus, brought 
to light many interesting points of difference from its 
European relatives, and, at the same time, threw considerable 
light on the affinities and characteristics of the group to which 
it belongs. An account of this investigation is now in print. 

During the past summer Dr. McMurrich was enabled 
(thanks to the facilities afforded by the Marine Biological 
Laboratory at Wood's Holl, Mass.,) to extend his studies to 
another group of forms somewhat related to the Actinians, 
namely, the Jelly fishes. Material illustrative of the develop- 
ment of the large Gyanea arctica was obtained in considerable 
abundance and preserved for study. Part of this was worked 
over at Wood's Holl during the summer, and it is hoped that 
the investigation may be concluded during the coming winter. 



47 

Material was also collected and preserved for the investiga- 
tion of the embryology of the Isopods, a group of Crustacea, 
of whose development and affinities comparatively little is 
known, and also of the Ixodidse or Ticks, whose embryology 
is likewise very little known. 

Dr. Bumpus. 

The year was mainly spent in studying the breeding habits 
and the embryological development of the American lobster. 

Numbers of living lobsters were kept in confinement during 
the autumn and winter, both at Nahant and at Wood's Holl, 
Mass., and points of both scientific and economic interest 
were established. 

During the spring and summer, through the courtesy of the 
U. S. Fish Commission, several hundred egg-bearing lobsters 
were examined, and experiments on artificially hatching the 
spawn were carried on. The most important embryological 
results, however, were obtained through the Marine Biologi- 
cal Laboratory. Every possible facility was there provided 
for the successful prosecution of embryological work. A full 
account of this work, its methods and results, will soon appear 
in the American Journal of Morphology. 

B. — Anatomy. 
The greater portion of the last academic year was devoted 
to the study of connective tissue fibrils. Until recently but 
two kinds of fibrils were known to form the frame- work of the 
body of vertebrates. The white fibrous, the strongest organic 
tissue known, (e. g. tendon) and the yellow elastic interwoven 
in the portions of the body which are elastic (e. g. arteries). 
To these two sets of fibrils Dr. Mall has added a third ; a tissue 
widely distributed and found in nearly all organs, — the mucous 
membranes, liver and kidney. In these it constitutes the whole 
frame- work. He has succeeded in isolating the fibrils in large 
quantity, and finds marked chemical difference between them 
and the white fibrous and elastic fibers. Towards the close of the 
year methods were found by which these fibrils can be stained, 
thus permitting very careful microscopic examination. In a 
short time these observations will be shown before the Eoyal 
Society of Saxony, and will be published in Leipsic and in 
Baltimore. 



48 

These fibrils and their properties were discovered while the 
histology of the portal system was being investigated. These 
studies have yielded valuable results regarding the minute 
anatomy and history of the liver lobule. The aim has con- 
stantly been to study the relation of the microscopic parts to 
one another, and the architecture of these individual parts. 

In a study of this kind the blood-vessels are constantly met 
with, and these have proven to be of most valuable service in his 
investigation. He has traced and counted the many million 
of channels a drop of blood may take while passing through 
the organs of digestion. It is natural while studying a system 
of tubes like this to inquire into the forces which undoubtedly 
influence the circulation during digestion and rest. It is 
impossible to conceive that such a set of tubes with lining 
walls should be absolutely passive. Several years ago he 
found that intestinal contraction played a very important 
part in the circulation through its walls. During the last 
summer while continuing his investigation in the laboratory 
of Prof. Ludwig, a nerve was discovered which acts as a vaso- 
constrictor of the portal vein. Not only does this strike the 
key-note of his investigation, but it also throws new light on, 
and opens up a new field in the physiology of circula- 
tion. A preliminary report of this operation will soon appear 
in the Arch. f. Phys., Berlin. 

The laboratory has also been fitted up with the necessary 
material for modelling microscopic objects after the method of 
Born. Some three months were occupied in modelling a 
human embryo less than a month old. The extreme difficulty 
to obtain perfect specimens of this age justifies him in devoting 
so much time to a single, apparently insignificant, specimen. 
The individual studies of this kind have placed humam em- 
bryology equally as high as that of any of the lower animals. 

Dr. Gage has been conducting a series of experiments upon 
intestinal suture. It is known by experiment that operations 
are more successful upon lower animals than upon man. 
Starting with the methods known to surgeons, he applied 
them in his experiments and then attempted to improve. 
Improvements in turn can be applied in human surgery. The 
experiments of recent years have thrown much light upon 



49 

intestinal surgery and make of it a science. His experiments 
have been varied and he finds that by certain methods all 
animals may be saved provided they are operated upon within 
a short time after an injury. 

Dr. Miller has been studying the histology of the lung and 
the relation of the blood-vessels to the air-cells. His work has 
already demonstrated the relation of the air-cells to one 
another. 

Dr. Tuckerman has spent the entire year in studying the 
gustatory organ of mammalia, the results of which will appear 
in the next number of the American Journal of Morphology, 
Twenty nine species of animals were studied, and the struc- 
tures of their gustatory organs described and compared. The 
paper concludes with a comparison of the gustatory papillae 
and taste bulbs of the marsupalia and endentata. 

C. — Physiology. 
Dr. Lombard. 

Most of the year has been spent in investigations on fatigue. 
Valuable results have been found, but are not yet ready for 
publication. 

Dr. Cardwell. 

Dr. Cardwell spent the year in experimental researches on 
the study of the functions of the cerebellum, and reports sat- 
isfactory progress. 



V.— DEPAETMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY. 
A — Neurology. 



Dr. Donaldson 



has been engaged during the year in describing the brain 
of the deaf-mute, Laura Bridgman, and the first part of his 
results will occupy about 50 pages in the forthcoming number 
of the American Journal of Psychology. The summer has 
been largely spent in studying variations in the weight and 
volume of the human brain according to the method by which 
it is preserved, but these results are not yet ready for pub- 
lication. 

Dr. Hodge. 

The special work of last year was directed to the investi- 
gation of the process of recovery from effects of fatigue in 
the cells of the spinal ganglia. Up to last year the changes 
which occur in nerve cells during fatigue had been pretty well 
made out. The next step, of even greater importance than 
the first, must be a knowledge of the processes concerned in 
recovery. It was not known, although we had strong reasons 
for supposing, that nerve cells recover at all after fatigue. 

A series of five animals has been obtained ; in each of which 
certain nerve cells have been worked under exactly similar 
conditions for five hours, and afterwards, allowed to rest 
respectively, hours, 6 hours, 12 hours, 18 hours and 24 
hours, with a view to determining the process of recovery 
and also the length of time requisite for recovery from the 
effects of five hours work. 

Examination of the tissue is still in progress, but sufficient 
evidence has-been obtained to demonstrate that — 

1. Individual nerve cells do recover from the effect of 
fatigue. 

2. The process of recovery is a slow one. 

As far as the determination has been carried, we may say 
that after six hours of complete rest, the nerve cells have 



51 

about half recovered from the effects of five hours rather 
severe work. At the end of 24 hours they have wholly re- 
covered. The publication of this chapter of the subject it 
is hoped may be made in full early this fall. 

B. — Experimental Psychology. 
Dr. Sanford 

has devised and described in the Journal of Psychology a 
simple and inexpensive chronoscope, — measuring with toler- 
able exactness to one one-hundredth of a second. He has 
also some studies on the relation of the reaction-time to the 
way in which the response is made, which are well advanced 
and which he proposes to publish during the coming year, in 
connection with further work in the same line. Dr. Sanford 
has also assisted in editorial work upon the Journal of Psy- 
chology, conducted and edited by the president of the Univer- 
sity. 

Mr. Herbert Nichols 
has concluded an important research on the effect of habit 
upon time-judgments. After performing the experiments 
which show the existence of such an effect, he undertook a 
second series designed to show whether the practice (ulti- 
mately resulting in the habit) left its impress chiefly centrally 
or peripherally, and whether on the sensory or motor 
mechanism. Mr. Nichols is at present engaged upon a 
resume of the history of the Psychology of Time. This 
study, together with the experimental and critical portions 
of his work, will soon be ready for publication. 

Mr. E. A. Kirkpatrick has published, under President 
Hall's direction, and from data collected by him, a study on 
College Seniors and Electives in Psychological Subjects, 
American Journal of Psychology, Vol. Ill, No. 2. 

C. — Anthropology. 

Dr. Boas 

has been engaged since a number of years in researches 
on the Indians of the North Pacific coast, the work 
having for its object a thorough investigation of the 
physical character, religious belief, customs and languages of 



52 

the numerous tribes of that region. The material for these 
researches has been collected in four journeys to the North 
Pacific coast. His researches during the past year have been 
mainly on those lines and on the material collected on his 
journeys. In the beginning of the academic year a large col- 
lection of myths and traditions from Alaska and British Col- 
umbia was arranged and prepared for publication ; it will 
probably be published in the near future. In discussing 
these myths an attempt has been made to trace their history 
and growth and evidence is brought forward tending to show 
that certain legends have been carried from tribe to tribe all 
over the American continent, while others tend to show that 
diffusion of legends also took place between Northeastern Asia 
and Northwest America. After the completion of this manu- 
script more special lines of research were taken up. The 
material collected in the summer of 1889 was sifted and ar- 
ranged aod the results briefly described in a report to the 
British Association for the Advancement of Science which was 
presented at its meeting at Leeds in September, 1890. The 
report treats on the distribution, social organization, customs, 
beliefs and languages of the tribes of the northern part of 
Vancouver Island and of the southern part of the interior of 
British Columbia. Work on an osteological collection from 
the North Pacific coast was also begun. The last month of 
the academic year was spent in preparatory studies for a 
journey to Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. 

Mr. C. A. Orr. 
Mr. Orr was sent as Anthropologist on the Government 
Eclipse Expedition to Loanda and was well equipped with 
apparatus and material. He has not yet returned, but, leav- 
ing the expedition, has penetrated into the heart of Africa 
northward from Cape Town. 

D. — Historical Psychology. 
Mr. B. C. Burt 
spent some time in preparing a needed text book on the His- 
tory of Modern Philosophy. He endeavored to set forth the 
platonic doctrine of the unity of opposites as a rational ex- 
planation of the unity of the world, and printed two articles 



53 

on the General History of Philosophy since Hegel, laying 
great stress upon the importance of Hartmann's work. 

Dr. Alfred Cook 
investigated the fundamental principles of the Kantean phil- 
osophy which he finds to be identity, change and motion, and 
hence he argues fundamental agreement between Kant and the 
laws of motion, as defined by Maxwell. Dr. Cook also be- 
gan, and has nearly finished, a text book in general psychol- 
ogy, which he believes to be needed and which attempts to 
harmonize the conflicting tendencies in this field. 

Mr. Dickinson Miller 
spent a good part of the year in the historical investigation 
of how far Kant had solved the difficulties broached by Hume. 
He reached the conclusion that Kant had failed in his effort 
to give a rational basis for primary beliefs, and that these 
first principles all rest solely upon the non- rational basis of 
instinct. His work will eventually be published as a study of 
Kant's theory of knowledge. 

E. — Criminology. 

Dr. MacDonald 

has prepared and printed digests of many of the leading con- 
tributions to criminology during the last ten years, thus 
bringing this material together and within reach of criminol- 
ogists and psychologists generally ; so scattered is this litera- 
ture in books and periodicals, in many languages, that this 
work has long been a desideratum. In his visits to institu- 
tions, Dr. MacDonald has collected some material for the 
study of pure, or type — cases among the various classes of 
criminals and defectives. 

F. — Education. 

Dr. Burnham 

was sent by the University to study European institutions 
and to collect literature for the new educational department. 
He visited many institutions in Great Britain, France, Ger- 
many and Belgium, and collected many reports and other lit- 
erary material. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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